The worst week of my life in over a decade went down something like this. The year started with a new director at work, a former project manager who only had no experience managing people; she dealt with people like they were a line in a project plan. I was just promoted by the previous director but was slowly realizing that my boss was trying to get rid of me. She would do things to undermine my work, like giving me important missing details but only after I had acted upon the partial information she had originally provided. When I had completed the task the best I could with the disadvantages she had created, she would respond to me by email in a matter of minutes to tell me how I had done it wrong. She made repeated requests asking me to write all my daily tasks down on a spreadsheet, in response I told to refer to the project plan. During one meeting, she added that the reason she was asking me to write down my tasks in details was so she could get other people on the team to take them from me. I decided after that statement to go on a stress leave to reflect on the situation and by the end of the week, I realized that it was time to leave a job that I loved for almost a decade. I didn't want to swim against the current anymore and besides that, I had lost all my joy and was no longer engaged.
I was dealing with the biggest crisis that I had experienced in over a decade and my boyfriend was nowhere to be found. He was pissed off with me and had disappeared as was his usual pattern of dealing with his upsets. He wasn't responding to my texts. Here is a text I sent him trying to disguise my hurt with anger and sarcasm.
An ensuing attempt at vulnerability.
Still no response.
What was most upsetting was that I had been there for him through all his drama for the past three years. My boyfriend had been recently separated when I met him, he had lost his home, his family, and his wife who had cheated on him. She started withholding his kids from seeing him shortly after we met, he wasn't able to see them for over a year. As I listened to all the stress and drama, I experienced it as if was my own. It was a stark contrast to the considerable planning I had taken to create a relatively stress-free life with zero drama. I was feeling all my boyfriend's stress, it was the most stress I had experienced but even more so because they weren't my problems and I couldn't do anything to resolve them. I wish I had seen these words of wisdom, umm, like three years ago.
When I was growing up in the Okanagan, I had found a baby bird who had fallen out of an attic. I fed it crackers soaked in water but my dad wouldn't let me keep it inside overnight so I left it outside bundled up in a box. The next morning I went to feed it, it had frozen to death in the semi-desert night. I have had a weakness for caring for strays that need compassion and a bit of TLC ever since, luckily there have been no additional deaths by freezing.
Last summer, my boyfriend lost his mother to cancer. I was so grateful that I had got to know her, she was an amazing woman, spoke her truth so I always knew where she stood. She called me her daughter-in-law as a term of endearment even though I was just her son's girlfriend. When I cancer got bad, I stayed with my boyfriend at his sister's place and listened in the darkness to his dying mother gasping for air, clinging to life with each breath she fought to take in. I was at her bedside the next morning when my boyfriend whispered in his mother's ear that it was okay to let go and to rest, and in response to those loving words, she took her last quiet breath and found her peace.
I had been there through so much for my boyfriend but he was not responding to my texts or answering my calls. So after a week of dealing with my crisis alone, I drove to his house to see what was going on. As I cruised slowly down the alley, I could see that the lights in his basement suite were on. I parked on the street and descended down the steps to the door of his suite as quietly as I could. I peered through the blinds on his door and could see him surfing for bike parts online. As I stood out in the dark outside his door, I called him to see if he would answer his cell. Through the blinds, I could see him glance at this phone, ignore the call, and return to the more important task of finding a deal in the bikes and parts category on Craigslist. Like a scene out of Fatal Attraction, I would not be ignored and knocked on his door like a bunny-boiler. He opened the door surprised that it was me and told me that he wasn't expecting to talk to me and that he was planning to write me an email. I deserved more than an email after three years and asked him to tell me what was going on. I knew this was going to be a different conversation because he couldn't look me in the eyes. He had been listening to all my complaints that I had voiced in the past couple years and was using them against me as he proceeded to break up with me. I knew that he really meant it, the relationship was over, and I left his place devastated. I had lost both a boyfriend and a job that I loved in the same shitty week.
Ya, so not a great week for me. I realize that this not the stuff suitable for the enviable posts of Facebook, flowing with good fortune and laced with perfection. Life is also serves up experiences that are not so postworthy but being vulnerable and authentic helps us connect. These things are easier to share with my friends here than with my acquaintances on FB.
For the next few months I mourned the death of my relationship and my job, experiencing dehydration headaches from crying so much. Someone told me the difference between a sad person and a happy person is that a sad person has sad thoughts and a happy person has happy thoughts. Finally, I had had enough of being sad and was ready to get back to happy. I wanted to see if I could actually smile again. I decided to distract myself by creating a profile on a dating website. A nice looking guy contacted me and wanted to meet for a coffee or dinner.
I opted for a glass of wine at my fave spot and planned to meet on a Thursday evening. I wore a posh cashmere dress and Stuart Weitzman knee high boots and headed over to the Flying Pig. I got to the joint feeling confident and open to the possibilities of meeting an age-appropriate, divorced financial planner. I sat at the bar and realized that my aforementioned ex was sitting two seats away from me. Wow, what a coincidence I thought, he is dressed up like he is on a date or something, wearing the smart Michael Kors jacket I gave him last Christmas. I also thought it was strange he was at a bar because he doesn't drink and asked him what he was doing there. He said he was meeting someone from a dating site and described the woman he was waiting for. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was describing me and that I had just been catfished by my ex.
I asked him whose picture he posted on his fake dating profile, he said he just found it on the web. I felt deceived and angry and left the bar. He followed me and told me that he catfished me because I would not respond to his texts, umm, says that guy who ignored my calls and texts for a week when we were seeing each other, during the most stressful week I had experienced in nine years. He was upset that I had not responded to his texts months after he broke up with me. I just figured he was bored and lonely and if he really cared how I was doing, he would not have broken up with me in the way that he had. People who are catfish suck because they are messing with people's hearts and lives, and the possibilities they are trying to create for themselves. Searching for love is a very meaningful pursuit for many people. It's not cool to waste people's time and give them false hope.
I have done a lot of healing and have tried to forgive, release the past and the way things used to be. I was working on accepting the changes in my life and trying to create space for something new. I was starting to feel better and the last thing I needed was to bring up painful emotions by talking to my ex. He thought catfishing me into meeting him was a good idea. I walked away, and went home pissed as he continued to text me outside my condo, a bit of karma for the one who had peered through cracks of his blinds like a bunny-boiler.
Just the Tip(s) for guys
- Don't catfish your ex unless you want to betray her trust and kill any chance of reconciling.
- Stalking your ex online will not be seen as the romantic gesture that it appears to be in your flawed imagination.
- Make sure that you have tried everything you can to make your relationship work while you are still together so that if you do breakup with your ex, you will feel that you did all you could while you had the chance.
- If you did make a mistake and want your ex back, respect her wishes if she is not interested in talking to you.
- Do not trick her into meeting you. Your plan will backfire.
Important Note: No bunnies were harmed in the making of this post or in the events leading up to it. Albeit, when I was a teenager, my dad made rabbit stew. The dark grey meat looked so gross and sinewy among the bright orange carrots and translucent onions. I went hungry that night. Later I wondered, "Where are Mrs. Whiskers and Mr. Bunbun? They aren't in their bunny condo." Just kidding, my dad hunted wild game in the Okanagan as an alternative to buying meat from the butcher. The bunny stew changed my life and was what made me realize that meat came from cute, fuzzy animals. I stopped eating meat when I moved out on my own to go to UVic and have been vegetarian for over 25 years.